A miscalculation is credited with fostering the creation of "Texas Toast," the oversized grilled bread slices that now regularly appear beside chicken fried steak and other delicacies served across the South.

Legend has it that in 1941, Royce Hailey ordered several loaves of wide-sliced bread from the Rainbo Bakery to see if toasting it would tickle the taste buds of customers at the Pig Stand Restaurants he managed around Beaumont.

"But when they went to put in a toaster, it was too thick to fit," recalled Hailey's son, Richard Hailey of San Antonio. "They didn't want to waste the bread so my dad and one of the cooks suggested, 'Why don't we butter it and cook it on the grill?' "

The taste and dimensions of the newborn dish quickly caught on, said Hailey, who followed in his late father's footsteps as president of the Pig Stand eateries that opened in 1921 and recently went belly up.

"They tested it on the customers, and they got an overwhelming response that it was very good so they said, 'I think we've got a winner here.' " he said.

The behemoth toast is still a favorite at the only Pig Stand that's left, located on Broadway Street in San Antonio.

"It's real good with sausage and gravy. They also love it with barbecued pork and brisket on it," said Mary Ann Hill, who owns the lone surviving eatery in the chain that once had about 100 locations nationwide.

"When I started in '67 we had the fish and chips and the Texas toast. That's something people remember," said Hill, who started as a carhop, rose to general manager, and took over the Broadway location in 2006 after the chain declared bankruptcy.

Although several national bakeries now produce the oversized toast, newcomers at Pig Stand often inquire about the side dish that sells there for $1.95.

"We tell them it's a thicker bread and instead of toasting it we grill it," said Hill.

Richard Hailey is retired, but he can regularly be found sopping up gravy with buttery bits of oversized toast.